Borkmann's Point (15 page)

Bausen had already set up the board.
“Your turn for white,” said Van Veeteren.
“The winner gets black,” said Bausen. “Klimke rules.”
“All right by me,” said Van Veeteren, moving his king’s pawn.
“I brought up a bottle,” said Bausen. “Do you think a Pergault ’81 might help us to get out of the shit?”

“At last!” he exclaimed an hour and a half later. “Dammit all, I
thought you were going to wriggle your way out, despite
everything.”
“Impressive stuff,” said Bausen. “A peculiar opening...I

don’t think I’ve come across it before.”
“Thought it up myself,” said Van Veeteren. “You have to be
on your toes, and you can never use it more than once against
the same opponent.”
Bausen drank to his health. Sat quietly for a while, gazing
down into his empty glass.
“Damn,” he said. “This business is starting to get on my
nerves, to be honest. Do you reckon we’re going to crack it?”
Van Veeteren shrugged.
“Well...”
“Keysenholt phoned half an hour before you showed up,”
said Bausen. “You know, the regional boss. Wanted to know if
I was prepared to go on. Until we’d cracked the case, that
is...”
Van Veeteren nodded.
“The snag is that he didn’t actually ask me to keep going.
Just asked what I thought about it. Wanted me to make the
decision. Damn brilliant way to bow out, don’t you think?
Condemn yourself as incompetent, then retire!”
“Well, I don’t know—” said Van Veeteren.
“The trouble is, I don’t really know myself. It wouldn’t be
very flattering to give yourself a few extra months and then
mess it up all the same. What do you think?”
“Hmm,” said Van Veeteren. “A bit awkward, no doubt
about it. It might be best to nail the bastard first, perhaps?”
“My view exactly,” said Bausen. “But I have to give this
blasted Keysenholt some kind of answer. He’s going to phone
again tomorrow—”
“Will it be Kropke who takes over?”
“Until the end of the year, at least. They’ll no doubt advertise the post in January.”
Van Veeteren nodded. Lit a cigarette and pondered for a
moment.
“Tell Keysenholt you don’t understand what he’s babbling
about,” he said. “The Axman will be behind bars within six to
eight days, give or take.”
“How the hell can I claim that?” said Bausen, looking
doubtful.
“I’ve promised to solve it before then.”
“Three cheers for that,” said Bausen. “That makes me feel
much better, of course. How do you intend going about it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Van Veeteren. “But if you were to bring
up a decent—let me see—a decent Merlot, I’d set up the pieces
while you’re away. No doubt we’ll hit on an opening.”
Bausen smiled.
“A homemade one?” he asked, rising to his feet.
“They’re usually the best.”
Bausen disappeared in the direction of his wine cellar.
So that’s how easy it is to fool an honest old chief of police,
thought Van Veeteren. What on earth am I doing here?
“But if ...” said Beate Moerk, scraping a blob of candle wax
off the tablecloth. “If Rühme opened the door because he recognized the murderer, that ought to mean that we have his
name somewhere on our lists.”
“Good friend or colleague, yes,” said Münster. “Do you
have anybody in mind?”
“I’ll go get my papers. Have you finished eating?”
“Couldn’t eat another crumb,” said Münster. “Really delicious...a scandal that you live on your own.”
“In view of the fact that I can make toasted sandwiches,
you mean?”
Münster blushed.
“No...no, in general, of course. A scandal that the
men... that nobody has got you.”
“Rubbish,” said Beate Moerk, heading for her study.
What a brilliant conversationalist I am, thought Münster.

“Not more?” said Münster. “How many are left if we
assume that he lives here in Kaalbringen?”
Beate Moerk counted them up.
“Six,” she said. “Six male friends or colleagues. A bit thin,

I’d say.”
“They’d only recently moved here,” said Münster. “They
can’t have all that big a circle of friends yet. Who are the six?”
“Three colleagues they occasionally saw socially...and
three couples, it seems.”
“Names,” said Münster.
“Genner, Sopinski and Kreutz—they’re the doctors. The
friends are Erich Meisse, also a doctor, incidentally, and...
hang on a minute. Kesserling and Teuvers. Yes, that’s the
lot. What do you think? Meisse is a colleague of Linckx’s, I
think.”
“I’ve met them all, apart from Teuvers and Meisse. I
wouldn’t have thought it was any of them, but that’s no guarantee of anything, of course. Even so, shall we say it must
be...Teuvers?”
“All right,” said Beate Moerk. “That’s that solved, then.
There’s just one little snag, though—”
“What’s that?”
“He’s been away for three weeks. Somewhere in South
America, if I’m not much mistaken.”
“Oh, shit,” said Münster.
“Shall we say it was somebody he didn’t know, then?”
“That might be just as well. Not any of these, at least. It
could have been a celebrity as well. Somebody everybody recognizes, I mean. The finance minister or Meryl Streep or
somebody...”
“Would you open your door for Meryl Streep?” asked Beate
Moerk.
“I think so,” said Münster.
Beate Moerk sighed.
“We’re not getting anywhere. Would you like some
coffee?”
“Yes, please,” said Münster. “If you make it, I’ll wash the
dishes.”
“Excellent,” said Beate Moerk. “I hope you didn’t think I’d
turn the offer down.”
“Not for a second,” said Münster.

“Are you used to this sort of thing?”
“Depends what you mean by used to,” said Münster.
“How many murderers do you generally track down per

year?”
Munster thought for a moment.
“Ten to fifteen perhaps... although we hardly need to

track down most of them. They turn up of their own accord,
more or less. Come and give themselves up, or it’s just a matter
of going around and collaring them—a bit like picking apples,
really. Most cases are sorted out within a few weeks, it’s fair
to say.”

“Cases like this one, though? How often do they crop up?”
Münster hesitated.
“Not so often. One or two a year, perhaps.”
“But you solve them all?”
“More or less. Van Veeteren doesn’t like unsolved cases.

He’s usually impossible to live with if it drags on too long. As
far as I know, there’s only one case that he’s had to shelve—
the G-file. Must be five or six years ago now. I think it’s still nagging him.”

Beate Moerk nodded.
“So you think he’ll be the one who cracks this one as well?”
Münster shrugged.
“Highly likely. The main thing is that we get him, I suppose.

Beate Moerk blushed. She turned her head away and ran
her hand through her hair, but Münster had noted her reaction.
Aha, he thought. An ambitious young inspector. Maybe
fancies herself as a private detective?
“Have you any theories of your own?” he asked.
“Of my own? No, of course not. I think about it a lot, naturally, but I don’t seem to get anywhere.”
“That’s how it usually looks,” said Münster.
“Meaning what?”
“That you think you’re just marking time and getting
nowhere; then suddenly, off you go—some little detail starts to
grow and becomes significant, and then it goes very quickly.”
“Hmm,” said Beate Moerk. She stirred her coffee and
scraped at another blob of candle wax with her nail.
“Do you mind if I make a confession?” she said after a
pause.
“Go ahead,” said Münster.
“I think... think it’s exciting, being in the middle of it all. I
mean—”
“I know,” said Münster.
“—I realize my first thought ought to be that it’s terrible
and awful, and I should be out there hunting down this mad
Axman because he’s a horrific criminal, and because honest
people need to be able to sleep at night. And I do think that, of
course, but...but I have to admit that I quite enjoy it as well.
That’s pretty perverse, don’t you think?”
Münster smiled.
“I don’t think so,” he said.
“You think the same!” exclaimed Beate Moerk, and suddenly, for one giddy fraction of a second, something happened
inside Münster’s head—the unfeigned look on her face as she
said it, the fresh, slightly childlike expression in her face—
genuine, pure; he didn’t really know why, but it gave him a
jolt, in any case, and reminded him of something that...
that belonged to another chapter of his life. Something he’d
already read. Enjoyed and given in to. Of course, he ought
to have been expecting it and, needless to say, he was. There
had been something about that walk through the town,
the beer at The Blue Ship, their conversation in between the
interviews—playful and almost wanton—something that was
so banal and so obvious that he quite simply didn’t dare put it
into words.
“Well,” he said. “I have thought...in the beginning, that
is. You get your fingers burned.”
It wasn’t that she was trying to lead him on. On the contrary, really. Presumably, he tried to convince himself, it was
the knowledge that he was married, the knowledge that Synn
existed that had caused her to let herself go a bit, allowed him
to come close to her—because she knew she was safe.
Safe? What about him, though?
“A penny for your thoughts.”
He realized that she was looking at him again, and that his
mind must have wandered off for a few seconds.
“I...don’t know really,” he said. “The Axman, I suppose.”

“What does your wife think about your job?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Answer first.”
“What Synn thinks about my job?”
“Yes. That you have to be away from home. Now, for

instance.”
“Not much.”
“Did you quarrel before you left for here?”
He hesitated.
“Yes, we quarreled.”
Beate Moerk sighed.
“I knew it,” she said. “I’m asking because I want to know if

it’s really possible to be a police officer and be married as well.”
“Possible?”
“Tolerable, then.”
“That’s an old chestnut,” said Münster.
“I know,” said Beate Moerk. “Can you give me a good

answer, though, as you’ve been in the job for some time?”
Münster thought it over.
“Yes,” he said. “It must be possible.”
“As easy as that, is it?”
“It’s as easy as that.”
“Good,” said Beate Moerk. “You’ve taken a weight off my

Münster coughed and wished he could think of something
sensible to say. Beate Moerk was watching him.
“Maybe we should change the subject?” she said after a
while.
“That would probably be safest,” said Münster.
“Shall we look more closely at my private thoughts? About
the Axman, that is.”
“Why not?”
“Unless you think it’s too late, of course.”
“Too late?” said Münster.
The only thing that’s preventing her from seducing me is
herself, he thought. I hope she’s strong enough...I wouldn’t
want to look myself in the eye tomorrow morning.
“Would you like any more wine?”
“Good God, no,” said Münster. “Black coffee.”
“Melnik has gallstones,” said Kropke.
“What in hell’s name...?” said Van Veeteren. “I’m not surprised, actually.”
“That’s why the report’s been delayed,” explained Bausen.
“He phoned from the hospital.”
“Did he phone himself ?” asked Van Veeteren. “Good for
him...Well, what shall we do today, then?”
The chief of police sighed.
“You tell me,” he said. “Continue gathering information, I
suppose. Before long every single citizen of Kaalbringen will
have had a say in this case. Not a bad collection of documents.
Perhaps we can try to sell them to the folklore archives when
we’ve finished—”
“If we ever finish, that is,” muttered Kropke. “How’s it
going with the ax?”
Van Veeteren put a cigarette and a toothpick on the table.
“Not very well,” he said. “Although I don’t suppose it matters much. I doubt that we’ll find the shop that sold it—if they
sell gadgets like that in shops, anyway. And as for asking some
shop assistant to recall who bought an ax a dozen or fifteen
years ago, assuming it was the man himself who did, no, I
think we’ll give the ax trail a rest.”
“What about Simmel’s children?” wondered Inspector
Moerk, looking up from her papers.
“Led us nowhere,” said Bausen. “They haven’t had much
contact with their parents for the last ten years or so, neither
him nor her—Christmases and big birthdays, and that’s about
it. You could say that puts them in a good light. Only visited
them once in Spain as well.”
Van Veeteren nodded and put the toothpick in his pocket.
Kropke stood up.
“Anyway,” he said, “I think I’ll go to my office and write a
few summaries. Unless the boss has anything else for me to do.”
Bausen shrugged.
“We’ll just keep plodding on, I suppose,” he said, with a
look in Van Veeteren’s direction.
“Yes,” said Van Veeteren, lighting the cigarette. “For
Christ’s sake, don’t think this is anything unusual. It’s hard
going, we have no sensible leads, no real suspicions, only a hell
of a lot of information, but things will start moving sooner or
later. It’ll come if only we have a bit of patience.”
Either that or it won’t, he thought.
“Did Melnik say when he’d be ready with the report?”
asked Moerk.
“Not precisely,” said Kropke. “A few more days, he thought.
He seems to be a persnickety bastard—”
“You can say that again,” said Van Veeteren.
“OK,” said Bausen. “Let’s get going with...whatever it is
we’re busy doing!”
Hmm, what am I busy doing? wondered Münster.

The village of Kirkenau was not large. A railroad station, a
clump of houses in a valley by the river Geusse that had
formed a longish lake in this part of the rolling, fertile countryside. Van Veeteren couldn’t see any shops, or a post office or a
school, and the gloomy-looking stone church by the roadside
looked as godforsaken as the rest of the place.

The road to Seldon Hospice was in the other direction, up
from the valley through a belt of sparse coniferous woods; ten
minutes by car, roughly, and when he parked outside the walls,
he wondered if it was really an old sanatorium. The air felt
fresh and oxygen rich, and it was no problem resisting the
temptation to smoke a cigarette before going in through the
gates.